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Gaddafi killed in hometown of Sirte

MARK COLVIN: Libya is waking to a new day after the death in disputed circumstances of the hated dictator Moamar Gaddafi. He ruled the country for more than four decades until the Arab Spring reached Libya in February, leading to a civil war.

Forces loyal to the new Libyan administration captured Gaddafi in his hometown of Sirte. The colonel reportedly begged for his life moments before he was killed. Images of his bloodied corpse, and that of his son, have been shown around the world.

Middle East correspondent, Anne Barker, joins me now.

Anne there was some hope or expectation that Gaddafi could end up in a war crimes tribunal, instead he's gone the way of, you know, Ceausescu and Mussolini.

ANNE BARKER: He always said that he would go down fighting and that he would die in Libya if that's what it came to. And certainly he got that slightly morbid wish. So the stories are still coming out really about how he died. It may be that we never really know the full story because there are conflicting reports, even among the anti-Gaddafi forces.

I mean yesterday we heard from Mahmoud Jibril, one of the Transitional Council leaders, at a press conference saying that he'd been caught in cross-fire when he was captured. And that the two sides were shooting, he got caught in the middle, he was shot in the legs and then later died of his injuries.

But in fact other government fighters, or Libyan fighters, have given different accounts and the it does appear that Moamar Gaddafi and his convoy tried to escape Sirte early yesterday morning, that they'd got some kilometres west of the town and that there may have even been a NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) strike on the convoy that killed many of those people in the cars. A lot of them were found burnt out with skeletal remains inside. But in fact that Gaddafi himself and some of his body guards had managed to run off the side of the road and hide in the drainage pipes.

Some of the videos we've seen online, the photographs seem to back up this account that he was definitely hiding in a drain. But there, that's where the stories conflict. It appears that he came, that the other side were shooting, that they came up to him, that he came out and, in fact, it seems that it may well be renegade fighters from the other side that just decided, took it on themselves, just to shoot him and give him the wounds that he later died of.

MARK COLVIN: Well we now know from video, you can see video that's obviously shot on a mobile phone of some sort, handheld, it's pretty shaky, but you can see him being manhandled. He is definitely alive, he's definitely conscious and being manhandled from one place into a car I think.

ANNE BARKER: Yes, I mean you see that very gruesome shot of him bloodied and bleeding. He was clearly alive at one point. There are stories that he was dragged along the ground.

I've read some reports that it was not until he got to Misrata, where he was taken by ambulance, in which case he may well have been dead at that point. Other stories suggest that he was dragged along the ground in Sirte itself. But there doesn't seem to be too much conflict now over whether he was dragged along by the hair and, but the question is whether he was already dead at that point.

Mahmoud Jibril did say yesterday that it appeared he'd been shot in the head and that that was the bullet that killed him. Of course, the question is who shot him? Who fired that bullet? And why, precisely why?

MARK COLVIN: You mentioned Misrata, it plays a significant part in all of this. I think the fighters who captured him were from Misrata and I am told that on that video you can hear the words 'Misrata you dog' being said to Gaddafi.

ANNE BARKER: That's right. I mean it was one of the major strongholds for the former rebels before the National Transitional Council took on the role of government. That's where the rebels really had some of their biggest fighting in the last eight months. It's was there that Gaddafi was taken by ambulance to hospital. It's about 100 kilometres away from Sirte at least. And it may well be that that is where he died.

Now his body, from what I gather, has been laid out in a house there along with his son Mutassim, who of course was also killed in this fight yesterday. We're yet to hear the details of how he died. And there is another son, Saif al-Islam, who reportedly is in hospital after being captured and shot in the leg.

MARK COLVIN: I was about to ask you about Saif al-Islam, how many more of the sons are there still to catch?

ANNE BARKER: Well that's a good question because some, you know a lot of his family, in fact, Moamar Gaddafi's family, escaped over the border a couple of months ago. Some into Algeria and some into Niger. There were 10 children, I gather, that he had, including a couple of daughters. I would say that most of them have probably fled.

But the son, Saif Gaddafi, who was also wanted by the International Criminal Court, and his father were the two that didn't make that exodus. And I think the reason behind that was because obviously they were worried that they might be, they might be found in Algeria or Niger and perhaps someone would dob them in to the ICC. It was always going to be easier for them, perhaps, to hide in their hometown of Sirte.

But yes, it's not clear just who else in the family, if anybody, is still left in Libya and where they might be hiding at the moment.